


Dive Right In

by Sticks_And_Stones



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Implication of Nudity, Swearing, mermaid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-07-15 17:07:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16067537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sticks_And_Stones/pseuds/Sticks_And_Stones
Summary: Virgil is a normal kid. He lives on the beach with his marine biologist father -whenever he's home- and has one friend, Logan, that is there for him all the time. Never in his life did he think that finding out what the blue and red flash that he saw underneath his boat would be the bridge between him, his mother, and a being deep below the sea that was supposedly as fictional as mermaids.





	1. Chapter 1

For as long as he could remember, Virgil had been without a mother. In stories, the characters missing at least one parental figure in their life remembered a glimpse, a sound, or a smell. Virgil on the other hand had nothing. If he could take a guess at which one memory of his eighteen years living had to do with his mother, he’d have to say his father constantly talking about his eyes. Just like Harry Potter, he had inherited his mother’s sparking sapphire eyes as well as her habit of staying up late. **  
**

“She was so much of a night owl, some nights I was surprised she didn’t take flight into the air,” his father would say anytime Virgil came out of his room with bags under his eyes (so quite often).

Everything else he had gotten from his father; his long, lanky limbs, his brown hair, and especially his love-hate relationship with the ocean. Although he lived within sitting distance from the water's edge, he had always feared the unknown depths. Humans knew less about the oceans that people loved to be in than they did about the moon, which was so far away, every planet could fit in between it and the earth with room to spare. Granted, there really wasn't much on the moon to discover, but still... there could be living beings under his boat other than the occasional fish and shark that could be far more dangerous than the teeth of a great white.

But he couldn't avoid it since, well, it was basically his backyard. Between the father and son, they had spent a lifetime at sea. His father was a whale biologist and sometimes would spend weeks out at sea, following migrating pods and recording hours of their songs. To the very few people who visited their seaside home, the constant sound of chatting whales was a bit annoying, but to Virgil, it was his white noise. He couldn’t sleep, eat, read, basically live without their singing. Deep, melodic, enchanting… he didn’t know why he needed it, but he did.

Sometimes he would bring some of his father’s old recordings to the shore and sit there for hours as the sun set, headphones on and just listen to the song, watching the sunset on the horizon. Other times, like tonight, he’d bring it out on his little row boat and float in the water, the whale song playing for the whole world to see as he lay there, listening to the gentle lap of waves on the wood and whales singing to each other.

The sun was just beginning to rise, or at least Virgil thought it was, the morning haze was hiding anything outside of the atmosphere from sight. It was a bit chilly but he had wrapped himself in his old black jacket and a thick wool blanket to act as a barrier between him and the chill. The whale song coming through his headphones was keeping him calm enough to not start rowing madly out to parts of the sea that were deeper than he could ever imagine. His father should have been back by last night but he was still out there following the orca pod because of some strange reason. Virgil knew he’d be back but it was an orca pod… He knew they wouldn’t attack him but there was still that irrational thinking that had him out here on this boat.

The whale song stopped momentarily to buzz and notify Virgil that if he didn’t get to shore instantly, he would be late to school. He sighed, turned off the alarm and started to fold up his blanket carefully to store under his seat. As he opened the compartment, something bumped against the bottom of his boat.

“What the hell?” Virgil leaned over the side and glanced around the boat, trying to find the source of contact. But the water was dark and he couldn’t tell if it had just been his imagination or something under the surface. As he began to give up, he thought he saw a flash of something bright blue and red. A part of him wanted to continue investigating what had made his boat rock but the other part told him that the most important matter at hand was getting to school on time. He shook his head, taking his water bottle and chugging over half of its contents.

“I’m going insane…” he muttered and started to row back to shore. Little did Virgil know, just out of the light was two living beings, watching the bottom of the boat go slowly back to shore with curiosity neither had ever felt before.

* * *

“Did you see that, Roman?!” the blue-tailed mer said excitedly, looking at his red-tailed friend. “He was in a completely intact boat! I’ve never been close to the shore before! Or been so close to a human! Ooh, that’s so cool!”

“I know!” Roman said, grabbing his friend’s arm and shaking it hard. “I told you, Patton, this human comes out on the water a lot. He was out literally all night so I figured that if there was anytime to show you a human, it would be now.”

“A human… an actual human! In a boat that isn’t wrecked! And with something that can record speech! Ooh, I wish he would have dropped it when I touched the boat! Or if he fell in! That would have been absolutely  _fintastic_  useful for my research!”

“Uh, not it would- nevermind. I haven’t really… seen his face before but he’s always playing the random snippets of conversation. I wonder if this human was stupid enough to know that the conversation he was listening to was about someone’s sex life.”

Roman guffawed at the idea of relaxing to something like that, but Patton was deeply invested in sharing his thought process to the entire ocean.

“Humans can’t understand our native language so they hear… whale song or somethin’. If he comes out here and listens to it often… it probably means something to him,” Patton muttered, adjusting the glasses on his nose. “I really want to meet him but-”

“Even I’m not adventurous enough to go up there and say hi, Pat,” Roman said. “Unless he jumps in and grows gills or you go out and sprout legs, we can never, ever interact.”

“Curiosity killed the carp, but satisfaction brought it back,” Patton said with a smirk.

“Come on, Pat. You use that every day!” Roman groaned. “Even my own father knows it’s ‘Cat’ and he doesn’t even know what a cat is! I don't know what a cat is! King Thomas doesn't know what a cat is! For all we know, it could eat fish!”

“I will say carp until the day I die, Roman. Carps are not dangerous and cats might be, so the least dangerous one is my choice,” Patton replied, flicking the end of his tail playfully. “Thank you for showing me him, Roman… I literally can’t say thank you enough, but I sure can try.  Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank y-”

“It’s fine, Patton. Now, let’s get back to the castle so we can make it seem like we were there all night.”

“That part I’m not too happy with… the lying part of it…”

“Would you rather tell a lie about something that literally holds no purpose to any of us or have Thomas and my father berate us for sneaking out in the middle of the night for that same purpose?” Roman asked, cocking an eyebrow and starting to float in the direction of the castle with a flick of his dark red and white tail. Patton sighed and matched the movement with his own dark blue and black tail. “Okay, okay…”

The two mermen gave a hard flap of their tails, they were shooting through the ocean faster than speeding bullets, the only trace of their mere existence a trail of bubbles and waves cascading to the shore.


	2. Chapter 2

“You were almost late again,” Logan said, waiting outside of their biology lecture hall as Virgil came jogging up the hallway, accidentally knocking into some of the other students waiting to go into their class. He ignored their annoyed grumbles and tried to keep his attention on his own problems rather than what they thought of him.

“I know, I know,” Virgil said, adjusting his messenger bag. “My dad didn’t come home last night so I was just, you know, waiting… on the water… with water, don’t worry.”

Logan pursed his lips and nodded. “You know he’ll come back, Virgil. He’s almost a day late anytime he has to go out, so I don’t know why you worry so much.”

“He’s my dad, Lo,” Virgil replied, sitting down at their seats near the back of the hall. “I worry about him for the same reason that I worry about you: you guys are the only family I have.”

Logan visibly didn’t react but Virgil knew he was feeling something behind those stone-cold eyes.

“Well in that case, if he’s not back by tonight, call me and I’ll come over with some leftovers. My mother made meatloaf last night so I’m sure she won’t mind me bringing some for you.”

“Thanks L-”

“Did I just hear that your house will be empty tonight?” Virgil turned around to see his classmate, Remy, leaning over and listening in on their supposedly private conversation. As usual, he was holding one of his seemingly unlimited supply of Starbucks drinks and his sunglasses that hid his somehow-golden eyes were beginning to slide down his nose again.

“No, you didn’t, Remy,” Logan said irritably, pushing his own glasses up his nose as if to set an example. “You simply heard what you wanted to hear as you eavesdropped yet again.”

“It’s not eavesdropping if there’s no teacher or other friends to listen to. It's simply trying to find something to pass the time or getting the dirt on people as a spy,” Remy said, taking the hint and hiding his eyes behind the lenses. “So your house is going to be empty? No parents, no supervision but Mr. IQ over here?” Remy cocked an eyebrow at Virgil. “Want me to bring some weed? Some booze? Girls or boys? Whichever and whoever you prefer?”

“There is not going to be a party at my house, Remy,” he said firmly. “My dad is going to be coming back in a few hours so if you even think of bringing even a drop of booze near my house, he’ll make sure you and anyone you bring stay away for the rest of your time in this town.”

Remy smirked. “Whatever man. You’re missing out on a seaside party, especially one where I’m the one running the show.” He turned his attention to the front of the class as the teacher walked in and started writing instructions on the board.

Virgil glanced down at his phone, hoping that his promise to Remy didn’t become a bluff by the end of the day. But there was no sign from him by the end of the first period. Nor the end of the second. Virgil could hardly concentrate on what his teachers were saying. He just barely picked up on due dates, homework. Hell, even the notes he involuntarily took throughout the lesson didn’t make sense to him when he read them over during his free-time.

“He’s fine, Virgil. As I keep saying today and every day he’s late from an expedition, he found something that made him stay out longer than anticipated,” Logan commented as Virgil checked his phone for the tenth time in five minutes.

During third period, psychology, Virgil figured that if they were learning anything about emotions or how the human mind became distracted easily, it would have been the biggest irony in history. Alas, they were learning about decision making and Virgil’s closest thing to a friend in that class, Emile Piccani, was deep in thought about what their teacher was scribbling across the board.

“Virgil, this is amazing!” he said as he drew an arrow between a new definition to a doodle of what looked like the scene from ‘I Am My Mom’ where Steven had to turn himself over to save his friends. “I could use this in everyday life, not just in therapy! Aren’t you glad you took this class?!” “Sure, Emile,” he murmured, lazily copying down whatever the teacher had written.

Emile kept muttering things like ‘I love this class’ and ‘Ooh, I gotta compare this to those new episodes later’, but Virgil was more distracted by the sudden light coming from his phone. He snatched it up and stared intently at the screen, his heart pounding.

_Sorry I’m home later than I said I would be. I got a little turned around. Home right now and currently making pork chops._

His heart leapt and he let out a sigh of relief, setting down his phone and slumping back in his seat. Not only was his father home safe and sound, he was making Virgil’s favorite dinner as an apology. Maybe he could forgive him this time… just as he did all the times before.

“Was he out late again?” Emile whispered, glancing over Virgil’s phone. Virgil tensed up at the sudden closeness but despite Emile being the top student in this psychology class, he didn’t see the physical sign of discomfort and kept close to Virgil’s face.

“Yes, Emile, and while I thank you for your concern, two things: one, personal space, please.“ Emile scooted back until Virgil gave a satisfactory nod. “And two, please don’t read my text messages over my shoulder.”

“Sorry, I’ll keep that in mind,” Emile replied, giving a soft smile. “Any idea as to how he got turned around? I mean, he has more than a few degrees in marine biology and over a decade of sailing. He went just over two dozen miles off the coast; even an amateur could navigate back from there.”

“None, but I guess I’ll find out when I get home,” Virgil said, shutting off his phone and finally able to turn every bit of his energy towards learning again. The rest of the day seemed to pass in a slow blur. It wasn’t fast but it definitely felt as if the world wanted to keep him in that hell-hole for as long as possible. Even lunch - with the constant movement and talk as he tried to make his way to his normal patch of grass with Logan (and occasionally Remy or Emile for reasons both beyond his control and explanation) - seemed to take days to live through. Finally, the bell rang and he sped towards his car.

“If you need me, just call me, okay?” Logan called as they crossed paths. Virgil gave him a thumbs up, clambered into his car and drove off.

* * *

Roman and Patton slowed down as they reached one of the many entrance to their kingdom; nothing inconspicuous, a hole in the coral just big enough to only allow creatures their size in. The surrounding coral reef hid this entrance well enough so one could only find it if they really looked. Patton slowed down and raised his arms for Roman.

“You first,” he said to which Roman chuckled and bowed.

“Thank you very much, sir Patton.” Roman swam into the hole and Patton soon followed once only the tip of his red fin was visible. With a flick of his tail, he swept in after Roman, leaving the beautiful coral reef behind in exchange for darkness.

“I always hate this part,” Patton muttered, his voice echoing around them. He took a deep breath, focusing on the feeling of water passing through his gills rather than the crushing darkness around him.

“Patton, if anything attacks, I’ll protect you, don’t worry,” Roman called back. “Has anything bad ever happened while anyone has been traveling through here?”

“No…” Patton whined, keeping his eyes focused on what he thought was towards the kingdom. They swam in silence for a few more seconds before passing through what felt like a wall of ice cold squid ink. Patton shivered and pushed forward, finally passing through the darkness and emerging on the outskirts of the kingdom, lit by a mix of natural sunlight a large glowing orbs that bobbed in place no matter how many fish were silly enough to try and go through them. Here, there wasn’t much to see; a few small stone houses and a couple schools of fish flitting back and forth between them. But as the two mers grew closer to the center of the kingdom, the houses became bigger, closer together, and more elaborate, the material used to build them going from stone to coral to polished shell. The mer population began to grow visible, tails of all shapes, sizes and colors; a rainbow of frills and fins.

Patton waved to a group of his friends currently buying some snacks from a vendor. When they tried to wave him over, he smiled sadly and pointed to Roman, mouthing ‘King business’. They shrugged and turned back to their order.

“Why don’t you join them?” Roman asked, bumping against his shoulder lightly. “You always make a point of saying that I need to make friends. And although I appreciate the support, have you seen how people look at me?”

“I know, but we need to get back to Thomas to make sure that there’s nothing that there’s no reports or assignments. And those who don't want to be your friend need to see that their priorities are as straight as you, the King and I,” Patton said, making Roman laugh.

"Thanks, Pat..." Roman sighed and kept swimming towards the very center of the kingdom. Nearest to the center, the houses suddenly stopped, giving way for a castle large enough for at least half the mer population in this cavern alone. Sometimes Patton didn’t understand why Thomas needed so much room for himself, his staff, and his lead advisors; there were only like one hundred of them compared to the thousands out there. Either way, the castle was a sight to see. Ebony walls inlaid with only the best and most beautiful stones and shells. Spiraling pillars made of polished pearl guarded by mers wearing and wielding steel weapons. The entire thing seemed to let out a silver glow that made Patton feel warm and fuzzy inside. He had lived in this glow his entire life and basking in it always meant he was home.

“Roman,” the guard at the front gates said as they drifted towards him. “Shouldn’t you be in a cave somewhere? Far away from here maybe?”

“Hello to you too, father,” Roman muttered. “What do you mean? I'm here because a: I live here and b: I need to see the King.”

“It’s a full moon, tonight, Roman,” Roman’s father said, his grey tail flicking slightly. “Now, I’m no expert, but the full moon is when Sirens are supposed to be singing their shallow hearts out, luring in every living thing that hears their false promise of happiness? Or are you the only exception?”

Roman’s lip twitched upwards and his fist tightened into a fist. Patton hit his own tail fin against Roman’s and grabbed his wrist firmly, rubbing it lightly until Roman’s fist unclenched. Even than, Patton kept his grip relatively tight.

“Yes, father, I am supposed to be out of the kingdom before the moon rises tonight. I simply need to see if there are any reports from the King and after that, I will be out of what little hair you have left and you get yet another night without me. What’s that make? Over six hundred, I’m sure,” Roman replied tightly. Roman’s father sneered and drifted to the side.

“Just go to his royal highness and leave before you pose a threat to anyone else.” Without another word, Roman swam past his father and into the castle, pulling Patton with him.

“The nerve of that man,” Patton muttered under his breath, letting go of Roman and swimming to catch up with Roman’s powerful tail strokes. “Roman, I suggest we stop for a second so you can calm down. You don’t want to go up to Thomas like this. It’s both disrespectful and something that will get him worried about you.”

Roman didn’t answer but did slow down and begin to take deep breaths. The gills on the side of his neck were flaring with anger and the attempt to breath normally. Patton didn’t say a word, just rubbed Roman’s wrist slowly.

“I hate him,” Roman finally muttered. “Sirens haven’t taken lives intentionally in hundreds of years… and we're not... we don't mean to be dangerous... But they... remember that boy Jameson Jackson from when we were children? He's now a mute, Patton! They drove him and his brothers out of the city because he was also a Siren! My father thinks that way about m-”

A sob ripped through him and Patton pulled him closer, rubbing his fingers against Roman's scalp and around the skin around his gills. The touch 

“I know, I know. But on the human land, racial differences were supposed to have been abolished hundreds of years ago and yet other things I’ve found say otherwise. Some things can’t or won’t change,” Patton said softly. "Don't go ripping your vocal chords out for the sole purpose of trying to get your father to like you. Or anyone for that matter. I'll be there for you, alright?”

They floated there for a few minutes, Roman's breathing slowly returning to normal.

“How come that’s what calms me down every single time you say it?” Roman asked, a trace of his normal smile popping up again.

“I just have that kind of voice,” Patton replied, letting go of his friend and keeping that ridiculously soft smile plastered on his face. “You good to see the King without sounding disdainful and like all the hate towards your father is actually towards him?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” Roman said, coughing slightly and blinking furiously. “Let’s go.”


	3. Chaer 3

Virgil pulled up to the house twenty minutes after he left the school and to his delight, saw his father’s boat parked at their small dock. Even from the driveway, he could smell sizzling pork and cooking pasta, making his stomach rumble. He drifted forward in a bit of a daze and opened the door.

“Dad?” he asked as he closed the door behind him. His father was standing at the oven and at his name, he turned around. As usual, Virgil felt like he was looking in a mirror, except his reflection was older, more sun burnt and with a little less hair. He looked at Virgil and gave a wide grin that stretched his sun burned skin painfully.

“Virgil, it’s good to see you again.” His father wiped his hands on a towel and rushed over to give Virgil a hug. Within the embrace, Virgil could smell the boiling oil, pork and pasta all over his clothes, but that barely asked the smell of the ocean embedded in his very being. Like with the smell of cooking pasta, the smell of the ocean was one of Virgil’s many definitions of home.

“You too, dad,” Virgil murmured into his shirt and pulled away. “Dinner smells great.”

“I sure hope so. It’s your favorite so I sure hope you’re not lying to me just to make me feel better,” his dad said.

“I only lie to you when you information isn't necessary to know, dad,” Virgil reasoned, scooting into the kitchen. “I’ll get the table set and if you have anything to talk about, like what happened out there that made you almost a day late-” his dad winced in guilt “-we can talk about it then.”

His dad nodded and turned back to the pork. Virgil sighed and started rummaging in the cabinets, trying to distract himself from the guilt he felt from causing his dad the same pain. hated guilt tripping his dad, but being almost a day late on a a trip that should have had him back at the very least a day early would inexcusable to anyone in Virgil’s situation. But he didn’t say anything else and went to setting the table, putting plates down, napkins to the side, etc.

Soon, there was two full plates of noodles, cooked pork and sauce being slowly inhaled by Virgil and his dad. Virgil finished his first bite and sighed. “It’s great dad. Thanks.”

His dad nodded and wiped his mouth. “So.. the trip… there’s the explanation, and after that good new and bad news. Which do you want first?”

“Good news always comes first,” Virgil said, trying to keep his voice level and void of any worry. “So shoot, what happened on the boat?”

“Well… I was navigating really well and I found a pod that I could follow for as long as I needed. They really didn’t care that I was there so I followed them for about two days,” he took a bite of pork and ran his hand through his hair. “But then there was a feeding frenzy and I unfortunately got caught in the middle and broke my navigational systems, so I had to make it back to land by guessing and memory. Thankfully I wasn’t too far from the coast so I managed to follow it back, the only delays being checking up on the pod.”

“Okay… so what’s the good news?” Virgil didn’t know what was going to happen next but whatever it was wouldn’t be good.

“Well the good news is that during the frenzy, I was introduced to two new pods that I’ve never seen before,” his dad said. “I’ll be able to research them and hopefully gain some more information about them and with the multiple species, maybe even how they communicate between different species and pods.”

Virgil gave a small smile. “That’s a good thing! Congrats!”

His dad nodded but didn’t return the smile. Virgil knew the bad news was bad if he wouldn’t even give Virgil a smile in return to assure him that everything would be alright.

“The bad news… I have to go to the institution and ask for new navigational equipment, or at the very least tools to fix it… it will take a lot of money, more than we have and unfortunately… if I want to keep this job, we’ll have to move very far inland. And when I say very far… I mean far enough away so that A: I’ll have to drive from wherever we live to the public docks anytime I have a new assignment and B: you can no longer go to the school you’re currently attending.”

But Virgil had stopped listening after his father had said the word ‘Inland’. This couldn’t be happening. He had lived by the sea his entire life and now his father wanted to uproot them and move inland?! He had someone here that meant something to him who, despite how much he supported Virgil, couldn’t move with them!

“Dad… you’re kidding. You work on the water, with marine animals! You can’t move us inland!” Virgil said, involuntarily scooting back from the table. “We’ve lived here all our life and you want to-”

“Virgil, you gotta understand that if we want to continue living in a house, we need to do this!” his father said. “I know that you’re doing well in the school you’re going to right now but the school in that town is just as-”

“No! We need to stay here!” By this point, Virgil had no idea what he was saying. He was just spouting out every bit of anger into any excuse he could form. It didn’t matter that what he was saying was completely out of line and completely unreasonable; he was angry. He was angry that his father was late anytime he had an assignment; angry that to keep their life, they’d have to give up everything they’d ever lived with; angry that he had to move just because he was so dependent on someone…

“Virgil!”

He didn’t realize that he was running out of the house until he felt the cool sand under his feet and the handle of his car in his hand. Virgil heard his father running after him but he had already started the car and pulled out of the driveway before the words ‘I’m sorry!’ even reached his ears.

Virgil rubbed the tears out of his eyes long enough to pull out his phone and send one text to Logan:

‘Cove. Now… Please’

* * *

 

“Your Highness, Roman and Patton have returned from the surface,” a guard, Joan, announced. Patton and Roman both grimaced at their words. Looks like any lies they were going to tell were completely out the window.

“See them in, please,” Thomas’ voice said from somewhere within the immense hall. Joan nodded for the two to enter and so they did, swimming in nervously. The hall was about a quarter of the size of a… what did humans call it? A feetball field?

Either way, Thomas was at the very center, floating at one of the windows, staring out at his kingdom. His red-purple scales were flashing in the light, somehow sending off specks of rainbow across the hall. His simple gold crown was rested across his head, the rubies, sapphires, amethysts, and diamonds sending out the same colors. As the two entered, he turned around and gave them a wide smile.

It was the same type of smile that Thomas had given them when they first admitted that they were friends for life. When Thomas was still a young Prince and his father still ruled the kingdom. When the three of them only had to worry about having too many sweets and lessons. That time with the two of them led them to where they were today.

Roman still remembered when they had to comfort Patton the first time he learned about humans and their effect on their lives. He cried for two hours and than began to research how to help and became determined to end up where he was now: as Lead Scientist in the Pollution department.

He himself really hadn’t gotten anywhere in life yet but was being forced to train to become a member of Thomas’ royal guard… just like his father. He hated the idea of being in the same position of his father but he’d have to if he wanted to continue his seamless connection with Thomas and Patton. Learning how to use a sword and being able to spend time with his best -and only- friend was a bit of a perk to this situation.

Thomas had always been there for everyone. It was his job to be the shoulder to lean on since he was old enough to understand what death was (which was unfortunately very young in correspondence with the Queen’s death). But he had always been an incredible friend and leader to everyone who lived under his rule. Although people didn’t like the idea that his power would be passed down by choice rather than by blood, the kingdom was better because of him. Patton was a better person because of him.

Roman was a better person because of Thomas.

“Roman, Patton. Good to see you two again.” They began to bow but Thomas raised a hand. “You know how I feel about you guys treating me like I’m more than a mer. The only thing that makes me different is this.” He removed his crown and approached them, smiling brightly at them. “There. Now, I heard about your little adventure to the surface last night. What is it that you need?”

“Your high- Thomas,” Patton smiled at him. “We simply need to know if there are any reports or scans we need to do or finish before we- Roman goes off tonight.”

“Well from what I hear, you got ahead on your duties, didn’t you, Patton?” Thomas asked. “Good job on that.”

Patton gave a grin and visibly tried to restrain himself from rushing forward and embracing Thomas. Despite him being a king and Patton simply being in charge of the Pollution control in their kingdom, Patton loved Thomas, almost to a familial point. However rushing forward to hug the king wouldn’t have been very respectful or appropriate.

“As for you, Roman, you know the procedure for Sirens at the full moon. Just find a secluded area and you’ll be excused for the next two days. The only thing you have to do before than is simply give me a goodbye hug. Yes, Patton, you can get a hug even if you’re not going anywhere,” Thomas smirked and held out his arms and Patton instantly swam into them, but Roman hesitated.

“I feel like there’s a catch,” Roman said. “Hugs with you are pretty rare. You sure Joan over there will let us touch you?”

“No catch, just a hug. And Joan, it’s fine,” Thomas said, holding out the one arm. Joan, who was currently floating in the corner, shrugged and didn’t react to Thomas’ insistence for a hug. Roman shrugged and allowed himself to be hugged up to Thomas’ body, getting partially squeezed by Patton. Despite his suspicions that this hug might be for some other reason than friendliness, Roman couldn’t help but enjoy it.

“Now, Roman, you need to go. It’s getting late,” Thomas said, patting his shoulder. Roman nodded. “Got it. I’ll see you two in a few days.”

With that, Roman swam out of the castle, making sure to use the exit farthest away from his father, heading straight for the surface.


	4. Chapter 4

Virgil barely realized that Logan approaching him over the sound of waves crashing down on the beach. He was too focused on that one sound to notice anything than what caused it. The ocean was absolutely beautiful, especially with a full moon rising on the distant horizon. The cove was small, just big enough for a few sailboats, and very isolated, difficult to get to if you didn’t know how to get there, which is why Virgil loved it here. He was sure that only two people knew of it: himself and Logan. He had found it when he was about ten when he decided to go riding his bike off the beaten trail and stumbled across a small cave system that led to this cove. Now they came here sometimes to study or to just hang out and swim, or if either of them was having a hard time, like Virgil was now. **  
**

Even when Logan sat down next to him in the sand, Virgil didn’t know he was there until Logan asked, “What did you need to talk about?”

Virgil stayed quiet for a moment, staring out at the waves.

“My dad found new pods that he can study. He’s going to the institute to ask for permission and for a loan.”

“Well I don’t see why that brings the need to meet here. However, I sense that there is darker side to this.”

Virgil smiled slightly, and then sighed. “He needs to move inland if he wants to continue his work. A sea-side house is becoming to expensive…”

“Well that’s completely contradictory. He’s a researcher who needs to be near water in order to make a living,” Logan said.

“Exactly!” Virgil said, throwing his arms up in the air. “The only reason we’re moving inland is so we can keep living in a house but the fact that it’s for his job as a MARINE BIOLOGIST makes no sense! I understand that he needs to but it’s so stupid!”

Logan pursed his lips, trying to find the words to help Virgil with this problem. “Virgil… try to understand. It’s good financially for him. He can continue his research there and when he needs to, head back here. You can visit us then. But if you two want to continue living-”

Anger and frustration boiled in Virgil’s stomach. Maybe it would have been better to call someone that actually understood emotions… like Emile. At least he would hold some sympathy. He stood up suddenly, rubbing his eyes. “I need to go.”

Logan gaped like a fish at Virgil. “What? Virgil, I don’t understand.

“I need to go, Logan,” Virgil insisted, rummaging in his pockets for his keys.

No, all he could say was ‘Deal with it. It’s financially better for everyone’.

“Virgil I only meant that your father benefits from this!”

“Exactly, Logan!” he exploded. “If the institute wants him to be leading the research, they could pay him more or cover the mortgage or something to keep him close to where he’s required to work! I called you here for you to… to talk to me! To be someone that I can lean on! To be someone with even a slight amount of sympathy! I’m going to be leaving for who knows how long, Logan, and all you can talk about is… finances!”

The anger and frustration of the night came spilling out of him through his eyes and his mouth in the form of words and tears.

“I’ve lived here my whole life and my dad has wanted it to be that way for me and for his job! And now… now we’re packing up and moving and he won’t give me a second option! And- and you’re here with your fact-based opinion bull shit! I just needed someone to say ‘Damn, Virgil, that sucks!’ or ‘I’m here for you Virgil no matter how far apart we are!’”

He wiped away his tears and glared at Logan. “Do you get it? Or can robots not understand anger either?”

Logan stood up slowly, his face showing no emotion but understanding…

“Virgil… I will miss you more than you realize. You are one of the very few people in our school that isn’t beyond incompetent for our grade… and to me, you’ve been the only friend I’ve had in my entire life. You moving is going to take as big a toll on me as it is on your father…” Logan put a tentative hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “I just hope that you realize too that this is all for you. Like you said, you live here because your dad wanted the best life for you. And no matter how hard it will be for him, he’s moving you two inland… but like I said… you’ve been my only friend my entire life and you leaving will be something that will have an immense impact on my life. And I will always be thankful for the time that we’ve spent together.”

Without warning, Logan pulled Virgil into a stiff hug. Logan had never hugged Virgil, or anyone else to the best of Virgil’s knowledge, so this was new territory for him. Virgil didn’t know what to do but stand there in shock for about five seconds before hugging him back tightly. It might have been his imagination, but he thought that he heard Logan sniffing and breathing shakily. He let what little tears he had left fall as he stayed in the embrace for as long as the two needed it.

* * *

Roman was approaching his monthly singing spot quicker than he wanted to and even though he was currently hundreds of feet underwater, he could feel the power of the moon calling to him. Calling him to sing with sirens across the world until the moon began to wane again. He hated it but at the same loved it.

Whenever he brought this up to Patton, Patton insisted that he explain why he felt this way. Roman could only say: “It’s like… the part of me that’s not allowed to be shown… I can let it out as much as I want to. No one’s in danger and I can sing my heart out, even if it is the Siren’s Song.”

Roman wished that he didn’t have to deal with all this Siren bullshit, but what could he do when what his mother gave him made him sing deadly songs once a month? He could enjoy his one night to sing without fear of hurting someone that’s what he could do.

He reached the cove and swam down towards a small cave carved into the cliff from thousands of years of the sea being an uncontrollable force of nature. It was deep beneath the surface, almost at the bottom of the cove and inside was a medium weight so he could keep himself rooted to one spot rather than having to manually force himself to stay at one level the entire night.

Although he couldn’t see it, he knew that the was moon shining brightly overhead, not quite at its peak, but almost there. He could almost feel his vocal chords humming with the magic inside him, itching to belt out every last note and bar he could imagine. He began to take long, steadying deep breaths, occasionally sipping from his hip flask. It was almost time for all sirens to begin to sing…

There was a powerful pull at his very being, not painful but definitely something he couldn’t ignore. He opened his mouth towards the roof of the cave involuntarily. For a second, he was gripped with unimaginable panic at the sudden movement but then relaxed and allowed the Song to pour out of him.

_~ Into the sea_

_Pull you close to me_

_Slide ‘neath the waves_

_Down into the caves ~_     

* * *

A voice drifted through the air, soft and sweet… singing a song? Virgil didn’t know what song it was but that didn’t matter right now. Someone was in their cove.

“Logan, did anyone follow you down here?” Virgil asked, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. He kept looking around, trying to find the source of the voice, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere, every part of the cove all at once. He shook his head, trying to clear the thoughts of panic from his mind. “Logan!”

“Hmm?” Logan asked. Virgil turned and looked at his friend. To his shock, his friend no longer looked like the serious know-it-all he had grown up knowing. He now looked like a young school boy who had seen a pretty girl walk by and had fallen in love without ever knowing what love was. He was almost swaying to the tune of the song.

_~ Kiss me my love_

_Come rest in my arms_

_Dream your dreams with me_

_Slide ‘neath the sea ~_

“Logan, snap out of it!” Virgil said, snapping his fingers, trying to get Logan to come to his senses, but instead, Logan looked at Virgil giddily.

“I’ll be right back, okay! I just need to do something.” Without another word, Logan started sprinting towards the water, shoes and all.

“Logan!” Virgil yelped, watching as his friend dove head first into the icy cold waves and began to swim through the waves and out to deeper water. Virgil didn’t know what to do! It now occurred to him that even living at the sea his entire life had never taught him how to swim in the ocean! He had maybe gone ankle-deep but never had he dreamt that he would need to swim out past the breaking waves! What could he do now?!

He could save his only god damn friend from drowning, that’s what he could do.

He cursed silently, stripping off as much of his clothes as he could, leaving only his boxers and then without another thought, dove in after Logan.

_~ Come to me my love_

_Forget the land above_

_Slide ‘neath the waves_

_Down into the caves ~_

The water shocked him to the core. It was indescribably cold and Virgil knew that one of them was going to be coming out of this with blue lips and days of illness. Whoever it was didn’t matter right now. All that matter was saving Logan, who at the moment, was making a beeline towards the cliffs. It didn’t seem to matter to him that these icy-cold waves were hitting against the sharp rocks with enough force to break more than a couple of bones. He just really wanted to get to those cliffs and Virgil wanted to catch up to him. Surprisingly, he wasn’t falling far behind his friend, but he wasn’t catching up either. Maybe years of rowing past the waves had a helping hand?

Suddenly, Logan dove and Virgil opened his mouth to curse, getting a mouthful of ice-cold, salt infused water. Spluttering, he tried to see where Logan had gone, but all that was left of him were his precious glasses, floating there like an ominous gravestone…

Steeling himself, Virgil took a deep breath and dove after Logan.

_~ Into the sea_

_Pull you close to me_

_Slide ‘neath the waves_

_Down into the caves ~_

He couldn’t see a thing. The salt was burning his eyes so badly, he almost forgot about the cold. He didn’t know where Logan was so just kept swimming down… down… hoping that soon, his hands would brush his friend’s shoelaces and he’d be able to drag him back up to the surface before they were both lost to the sea.

His legs were beginning to tingle horribly, as if pins and needles were forcing their way all the way through one leg and then out the other, an intense ache starting up in his bones. From the cold or from fatigue, he didn’t know and he didn’t care. He just needed to keep them moving in sync with his arms and ignore the painful burning beginning to build up in his chest.

A flash of brown. Moving limbs.

_~ Kiss me my love_

_Come rest in my arms_

_Dream your dreams with me_

_Slide ‘neath the sea ~_

Was that his imagination? Was the lack of oxygen getting to his brain, making him see things that weren’t there like a tail or a person… Logan? He thought he could see Logan still swimming, his strokes becoming more frantic and yet more sluggish by the second. A small stream of bubbles rushed by Virgil’s face and suddenly Logan went still.

“LOGAN!”

_~ Come to me my love_

_Forget the land above_

_Slide ‘neath the waves_

_Down into the caves ~_

He swam forward with as much strength as he could muster, ignoring the burning pain that exploded in his chest, neck and legs. He grabbed Logan’s arm and then swam towards the surface, the only thought in his mind was getting them out of the water as soon as possibly.

But something was behind him. He didn’t want to see it, or know what it was, but he knew it was there. Something was following them up towards the surface, which was only a few feet away.

His head broke the surface and he gasped, pulling Logan up so his friend’s face was above the water. His lungs burned as he inhaled oxygen again, but he didn’t care. He needed to take care of Logan first, before anything else. He didn’t have time to take him back to shore. It was care for him now, in the open ocean or risk losing valuable time getting oxygen flowing into Logan’s incredible brain again.

“Logan! Logan are you okay?!” He put his face near Logan’s, noting how blue his lips were, and pressed his fingers to Logan’s throat, letting out a small sigh when he felt a pulse but didn’t feel any breathing. He pressed his mouth to Logan’s, not really caring about anything else right now and began to force breath into Logan’s lungs.

The thing that had been following them had stopped, just below them but like before, Virgil didn’t care.

On his sixth breath, Logan gave a shuddery cough, spewing up water and bile, then took a deep breath in. His eyes didn’t open but when Virgil put his face near Logan’s again, he felt a slow, steady breathing on his cheek. Virgil gave a small laugh, hugging his friend close. He had saved him… his friend was going to be okay now that the biggest danger had passed…

_~ Kiss me my love_

_Come rest in my arms_

_Dream your dreams with me_

_Slide ‘neath the sea ~_

“Do you realize how much trouble we could be in?”

The creature had surface in front of Virgil. A man with sopping wet hair and a voice that seemed to resonate into Virgil’s very being. He wanted to go forward and be with the man forever, but he shook off this feeling to deal with something even more important than a pretty face and hair.

“What are you talking- Who are- Where did you-”

Sometime brushed against Virgil’s legs; something soft and slimy, like seaweed.

He involuntarily gave a small yelp and kicked his legs hard to get rid of the thing. To his surprise, he almost shot out of the water.

“What the hell!” He looked down and realized two things. One: the man floating in front of him had a long flowing red and white tail that was flicking like an annoyed cat tail. Two: Virgil’s legs had gone missing and had been replaced with a long purple and black tail, very similar to the man’s.

It was then that Virgil screamed.

* * *

Deep underwater, far beyond the rule of King Thomas’, a mer was awoken from their slumber by a faint glowing in their home. They got up and swam over to the glowing orb and looked inside. Their eyes widened when they saw two young mer and an unconscious human floating in the water about two hundred miles away from their current location. Their eyes widened at the sight of the mer holding the human, the one currently looking down at his purple tail and screaming.

“Well I’ll be damned,” the mer holding the orb hissed. “She did it... It’s possible.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Siren Song I used in this chapter is from the Netflix series 'Mako Mermaids' and I used it simply because I can't write original content or songs for shit.


	5. Chapter 5

“Why are you screaming?!” the man asked loudly, trying to overpower Virgil’s gasps of fear with volume. His voice was still resonating that hypnotic power, but Virgil didn’t really care about that. He was more concerned with the fact that his legs had been replaced with a long, purple tail and the unconscious body of Logan bobbing in the waves between the two. As he took long, deep breaths, he felt something moving on the side of his neck. He reached up and felt three long slits flapping in the cold night air. Knowing that he could now extract oxygen from more than just dry air through three holes in his neck didn't really help him breathe any easier.

“THIS! Gills?! A tail?! I’m not supposed to have… I shouldn’t be like this!” Virgil said, thrashing his tail underwater. Now that he wasn’t in a rush to save Logan, the tail felt heavy and awkward, like a large blanket wrapped around his legs, keeping them tight together and weighing them down.

“Uh, yeah you are. If you have those, you’re a mer. Mer’s are supposed to have tails and gills; it’s what makes us different from humans,” the man said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Speaking of which, we better leave the human somewhere before we get in a ton of trouble.”

“I’m not leaving him! I’m supposed to be like him! Two long skinny legs! A visible di- I’m supposed to have feet, toes, knees, ankles! Not… scales and a fin!” He flapped his tail again, accidentally slapping the other man in the face.

He groaned, holding his cheek and scowled at Virgil.

“Well at the moment, I don’t see whatever humans have so until you prove me otherwise, you’re a mer just like me,” the man smirked. “So, tell me, how’d you resist the song?”

“What?”

“My song. No one can resist it, not even mers. You resisted it then and you’re resisting it now. How’s that?”

Virgil still didn’t understand, and although a part of him wanted to, he knew that there were more important matters at hand. “Listen, I don’t really care cause my friend’s life is more important than some song. I need to get back to shore… Need to figure out this fucking thing.”

He tried to use this new appendage and found that it was quite powerful and lithe, shooting him forward a couple of feet with one stroke. The man’s demeanor changed from smug and curious to downright fearful in a matter of seconds.

“No, you can’t be near him any longer then now! If anyone finds out that you were with a human-”

“Look, whatever laws you’re talking about don’t apply to me because they apply to your species. I am not a mer, or a siren, or a fish of any kind! I am HUMAN,” Virgil snapped, struggling to keep his own head and Logan’s out of the water while still trying to keep the salt water out of his mouth. “So if you don’t mind, I need to make sure my friend here doesn’t end up with hypothermia! If you’re not going to help me, then get away from me!”

Without another word, Virgil sped off towards shore, trying not to be impressed by the speed and strength of his tail. He heard the other man mumble something under his breath and than speed after him. Within seconds, he had caught up and grabbed Logan’s other arm. Virgil nodded in thanks and put his other hand underneath Logan's neck to keep his head completely above water.

“So what’s your name?”

“Why does it matter?” Virgil asked, not looking at the man no matter how much his voice was telling him to.

“Well if anyone finds out about this, we’re both screwed, mer or not,” the man said. “Might as well know the name of the guy I’ll be sentenced to prison with.”

Virgil faltered for a moment at the word prison, but then his former argument about the laws not applying to someone who wasn’t of the species that those laws were for came to mind and he figured ‘What the hell?’

“I’m Virgil.”

“Roman. What’s the human’s name? Loogie?”

“Logan,” Virgil snapped, starting to feel sand and gravel scraping against and getting beneath his scales. It felt an awful lot like getting sand between his toes or under his nails, but after living at the beach his entire life, he brushed the feeling off quickly and started to drag himself up the beach, inching his way up and trying to flop himself out of the water. It took a bit, but finally, he was almost out of the water, out of breath and soaked to the bone. All that was left was the tail.

“Finally…” he hauled the tail out of the ocean. As soon as air was touching every inch of it, a sharp tingle was sent through it, just like what he had felt when he had dove for Logan. He gasped, one hand reaching for his tail, the other for his neck, where the same pain had sprung up.

“Virgil?!” Roman asked, but he couldn’t respond. The tingling suddenly intensified and he looked down at his tail to see the scales literally melting away. It looked like that purple slime that kids were so into, but warmer, and in a much larger quantity. The same substance was running down Virgil’s hand now, indicating that his gills had disappeared as well. It came off in one large sheet of thin, watery slime, piling up around his legs and as soon as the stuff hit the ground, it dissolved into water.

“WHAT THE FUCK?! You were telling the truth?!” Roman gasped, watching the transformation. Soon, Virgil’s legs were completely visible, devoid of any scales, fins or slime. Unfortunately, it seemed that his boxers had been destroyed in the initial transformation so he was currently buck-naked, surrounded by slimy water, on a beach, in front of his unconscious best friend and a stranger with a tail and a voice that made Virgil want to hop back in the water and be with him forever.

“Close your eyes!” he shouted, trying to cover his nudity with his hands. Roman blinked, still in shock from the transformation but did as Virgil asked, obviously as uncomfortable with human nudity as Virgil was. Virgil stood, half-expecting the slime to wrap around his legs again, but his bony legs stayed separate. He scrambled over to the clothes still laying on the beach where he left them and got dressed as quickly as he could with his salt-water-soaked skin sticking to anything it touched.

“Alright… Logan now…” He ran over to Logan, draped his jacket over his chest and shook his shoulder. “Logan. Logan, wake up.”

“Wait, you’re waking him up?!” Roman asked, suddenly fearful again. He slapped a hand over his mouth and looked up at the moon angrily.

“Yeah, I am. I need to make sure he’s okay,” Virgil replied, still shaking. “Logan!”

Without warning, Roman turned towards the ocean and dove in, his red tail disappearing from sight within seconds. Virgil saw waves being created by his motion, stopping somewhere near where Logan had dove in.

“Drama queen,” Virgil muttered. “Logan, come on, wake up!”

Logan groaned and shivered. “Virgil? Mm… cold…”

“I know, I know. Come on, sit up.” He hauled Logan up and wrapped the jacket around him. “You okay?”

“‘M cold,” Logan murmured, shivering heavily.

“I know. Let’s get you back to the car, okay? We’ll get you to your house since it’s closer, just stay warm, alright?” Virgil said, leading Logan towards the small cave entrance of the cove. As he got to the entrance, he turned back to the water momentarily and saw Roman sticking his head out of the water, watching him go with tightly sealed lips. Virgil pursed his lips and left with Logan. Even if he didn’t know Roman that well, something told him that they would be seeing each other again very, very soon.

* * *

When they finally reached Logan’s house, he had warmed up a little bit but his teeth were still chattering a bit and he was very damp. Virgil led him into his room, wrapping him in as many blankets as he could before rushing around the room, grabbing the thickest pajamas he could.

“Can you dress yourself?” Virgil asked. Logan nodded. “I-I-I just ne-e-ed… towels and… and warm packs… U-U-Under the s-s-sink and in-n-n the cabi-n-n-nets.”

Virgil nodded and ran around the house to get what he needed. While he searched, he thought about what Roman had been saying. So for mer-folk, it seemed that coming in contact with a human, whether intentionally or by accident, was illegal and landed the perpetrator in prison. It also seemed that the fabled Siren Song was dangerous to mer’s and humans, so Sirens like Roman came to empty coves to sing without harming anyone… but obviously that had backfired. So the only unanswered questions were why was Virgil immune and did it have anything to do with the fact that in the water, he grew his own tail?

He finally found what he was looking for, grabbed as many towels as he could fit into his arms and filled a large rubber heating pad with boiling water, quickly wrapping it one of the towels and returning to Logan. He had already changed and was currently huddled in a ball on his bed, almost completely buried in pillows and blankets. Virgil slipped the hot pack into the mass so it was between a blanket and Logan, getting a sigh of gratitude from Logan.

“Th-Thank you, V-V-Virgil…” He sat up, took the towel and started to furiously rub his hair.

“Of course, Logan. So, do you remember anything?” Virgil tried to keep his worry to a minimum, but there were still the new questions forming through his head. What if Logan had seen Virgil with a tail while they were underwater? What if he had seen Roman?

“Well… I r-r-emember hugging you… an-nd then… a song or-r something?” Logan scrunched his brow. “I don’t rem-e-e-mber much af-f-ter that… jus-s-st the song… and cold… b-but I can-n’t remember the lyrics…”

“Okay… well, thankfully for you, Lo, I think I know what happened,” Virgil blurted before he could stop himself. Great, now he’d have to tell Logan the truth. He was going to tell ‘Facts are what make the world spin. Fantasy makes it grind to a halt’ Logan that magic was… real. The weight of what had happened hit him so hard that he actually stumbled back, gripping his head.

“Holy shit…”

“W-W-Well?” Logan asked, rummaging in his drawer for a spare set of glasses.

“You aren’t going to believe me until there’s definitive proof, but… damn, I can barely even believe it,” he laughed shakily. “Better give it a try though… I don’t think we’re going to avoid it at all for the rest of our lives. Well, you heard a Siren’s spell and tried to find it and almost drowned. I went out to save you and became a merman. Then I met the Siren that entranced you and apparently what we were doing was very illegal to mermaids.” 

 Logan blinked, staring at Virgil, a towel lopsided on his head and a pair of glasses in his hands. He then gave a small smile. “Wh- M-M-Mermaids and Sirens? Virgil, are y-y-you sure you’re not the one w-w-with possible hypotherm-m-mia?” 

“I’m serious, Lo,” Virgil said. “Hang on.”

He ran into the bathroom and filled the tub as much as possible. As he waited for it to fill, Logan shuffled in, still completely wrapped in blankets and sat on the toilet.

“Virgil, w-w-while I know you thi-i-ink that’s what happened, s-s-s-something else happened-d-d. I’m not sur-r-re what, but it ended with m-m-me here, very likely to catch a c-c-cold soon, and you here thinking that m-mermaids and magic exist,” Logan scoffed, grabbing some Advil and Nightquil from the cabinet and taking a good dose of each.

“I know what I saw, heard and felt, Logan. Do you?” Virgil asked, shutting off the water and stripping to his pants. Logan opened his mouth to say something but quickly realized that he had no response to that and shut it. Slightly satisfied that he had managed to shut Logan up for a bit, he looked at the water. Was he really going to do this? Willingly grow scales again when the last time he saw the tail, he wanted to rip the thing off him?

Yes, he would. For Logan’s sanity and for his own confirmation that this wasn’t a dream.

He got into the water and waited.

Nothing. No tingling, no slime, no scales, and no fins. Not even when he dunked his head under water. It was just him sitting in the tub, soaking his jeans and looking like an idiot.

“Virgil, we’ll go back there tomorrow. We’ll find evidence that points towards a logical explanation but for now, give up on the mer-”

“Logan, get me all the salt you have. I don’t want to get water all over your floors. Epsom, Kosher, dining, anything. You don’t know what you saw and you won’t know what you saw unless you get me salt. Please,” Virgil said, staring at his legs intently. Logan shrugged and shuffled off in his mobel blanket fort. A few minutes later, Logan came back in carrying about five large boxes filled with Kosher and Epsom.

“Here, I’m going to dump it all into the water and pay you back later,” Virgil said, doing the first thing he said he was going to do. He dumped a single box of Kosher salt and yet didn’t feel a thing.

“Another.” With this box, he felt something. His legs seemed to draw towards each other and he felt a slight tickling in his toes. Not wanting to waste anymore time, he took the last three boxes and poured those in. As soon as the last grain of salt was incorporated with the water, he felt the change come, less intense than the first time and this time, he was able to see it happen.

There was no metaphor to describe what it looked like. Whatever was happening now was a completely new thing to the world and at the moment, Virgil and Logan were the only people to know what it was. His legs snapped together involuntarily, tearing through his jeans effortlessly, and a thin layer of skin-colored slime covered them, melding his two limbs together. The tingling in his legs increased to near-painful as the slime began to shift and change, growing longer and forming the flower-petal like fin, making it look like Virgil’s skin had spread down and created a tail. As soon as the shape of the tail had been finished, the entire thing shimmered like light on water. Scales began to appear, one-by-one until the skin was almost hidden beneath all the scales. Virgil glanced away from the transformation for a moment to see that the scales became smaller and more spaced out as they approached his navel, giving the tail a smooth transition into his torso. A sharp tingle in his neck and something suddenly flapping against his neck told him that his gills had shown up. Finally, the tingling came to a stop, leaving Virgil sitting in a salty bathtub with a large purple tail and a speechless Logan.

“What? How- Virgil that- What?!” Logan took a step forward, dropping the blankets in favor of simply staring at Virgil in amazement. “That’s a- How in the- It was the truth?!”

“Yup,” Virgil said, flicking his tail a bit. “This is the second time this happened and honestly, I’m really surprised that I’m… okay with it? I mean, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be thinking so I’m just thinking ‘This is something that’s happening to me so I don’t think I can avoid it’.”

Logan reached out a hand to touch his tail, then hesitated.

“Go ahead, Logan,” Virgil said, even raising his tail a little bit so Logan could feel it. When skin touched scales, it sent a shiver up Virgil’s spine. It was weird… sensitive and just downright weird. Logan ran his hand with the scales and when he reached the fin, he looked at Virgil.

“Can you control this individually? Like a finger or something?”

Virgil shrugged. “Maybe, hang on.”

It was almost involuntary. His fins were controlled by his mind as easily as his fingers were, moving this way and that. Logan felt the ends, bringing the same feeling as him touching the scales.

“It’s almost like a fabric, but it’s too leathery to be fabric. I think it’s cartilage or skin…” Logan muttered. Suddenly, he reached over and pulled at one of Virgil’s scales, bringing pain like pulling out a strand of hair.

“Ow, Logan!” Virgil complained, rubbing the spot where the scale had been pulled out.

Logan didn’t respond, simply stared at the scale as light shone through it. “Virgil, you know me and I really, really want some tests, figure out how this all works and how this happened. Oh, I wish I had access to a secret x-ray so I could see the anatomy-”

“Logan, for once… let’s not try and find this out with science,” Virgil said. Logan looked at him incredulously.

“Virgil, what is happening to you is-”

“Magic, Logan. Mermaids began as a magical creature and they have stayed a magical creature for their entire existence,” Virgil reasoned. “Sure, the anatomy would be awesome to study the anatomy of a mermaid, but let’s leave that for another day. You can always collect scales and the slime that’s created when I change back another time. Let’s also leave figuring out how this happened by science completely alone. This is a mermaid thing, a magic thing, and we don’t know the first thing about magic.”

“No, magic-”

“Logan, my legs just fused into a purple and black, scaled, completely organic and functioning MERMAID TAIL with a fully functional fin! I can BREATHE and SEE UNDERWATER; saltwater, mind you. You were entranced by a SIREN SPELL. If you say that magic doesn’t exist, I am literally going to punch you,” Virgil said, pulling the plug underneath him so he could get his legs back.

Logan grumbled. “Fine. I won’t ever say that it does, but until that moment… all research will be delayed.”

Virgil nodded. “ Thanks. For now… get me some pants please. We’ll sleep on this and then tomorrow… I think I know someone who can help us start somewhere.”


	6. Chapter 6

Roman didn’t know what he should do but sit there in the cave. He didn’t know what was coming out of his mouth, random incoherent sounds or the actual Song. That was… impossible. He had just watched a mer save another human and then become one himself?! The scales literally melted off of him and he had legs! That didn’t just happen! It couldn’t have happened!

“AGH!” he yelled randomly, his voice echoing around the cave, the enchanting magic in his voice making his own mind go fuzzy with lust.

So he came in contact with… one and a half humans? One was unconscious, the other half was a mer a majority of the time Roman had been talking to him… so was it illegal? Nah, it wasn’t illegal. He was fine… but there was still that nagging at his subconsciousness. It wasn’t worry or fear, it was curiosity. He wanted to know more about that half-mer. How did a half-mer even exist if mers weren’t even allowed to talk to humans?! How was he able to resist the Song when neither mers nor humans could?!

There were so many questions that Roman wished he had a quill, some ink, and a few hundred feet of parchment. He could ask them to Thomas-

No, he couldn’t know. If Thomas knew, no matter how close the two of them were, he’d be forced to uphold the law and imprison Roman. Then he and the royal Alchemist would go hunting for Virgil to wipe his memory of the experience.

He had to talk to someone who could keep a secret for reasons like protecting him and someone else from the King’s laws.

The instant the sun rose over the horizon and Roman no longer felt the pull of the moon’s magic, he shot towards the kingdom as fast as his tail would carry him. The sea turned into a white blur of bubbles and sea foam as he sped past coral reefs, over deep trenches until he reached the entrance of the kingdom. He sped through the dark and once through the tunnel, sped through the kingdom as fast as possible without completely speeding.

Roman reached the front gate and slowed down in front of his father. He saw eyes with a burning rage and hate of a thousands suns shining through the helmet.

“Roman. What brings you here again so soon?” his father asked. “I hoped you’d be gone-”

“Save me the insults, father. I need to see Patton,” Roman croaked. Instantly, Roman knew he had come back just a bit too early. Although the moon had stopped its spell almost an hour ago, he could feel his vocal cords vibrating with the magic that drew that human to him. Not enough to be deadly, but definitely enough that his father’s eyes lost all sense of hatred and his body slackened.

“Go right ahead, don’t let me stop you, Jules,” he said in a dream-like voice. Roman grit his teeth at the name but swam on inside without second thought. Of course his father would call him that; the only Siren voice he had known was his mothers and since she passed, he hadn’t heard any others.

He swam through the castle silently, giving only nods to the guards who greeted him before he reached Patton’s room and knocked on the door.

“Mmm… who’s there?” Patton mumbled from the inside. Roman just continued to knock, unable to say anything without entrancing every mer in the very echoey hallway for the next ten minutes.

“Coming, coming.” The sound of shuffling came through the door and when it opened, Roman had to muffle any sound he made at the sight of Patton. A blanket haphazardly slung over his shoulders, his glasses on upside-down, and his hair floating around at odd angles. He smacked his lips and looked at Roman through bleary eyes.

“Oh hi, Roman. You’re home early,” he muttered, turning around when Roman was half-way in the room. He rummaged around the messy desk, around all of the toys from their childhood before finding an old scroll and pen. As he scribbled down his note, Patton groaned. “Aw, I liked that scroll.”

Roman shoved the scroll into Patton’s arms and quickly swam to close the door so Patton didn’t read the news to the entire castle. Patton sighed and pushed his glasses down and off his nose. He sighed, grabbed them and put them back on to read the scroll.

“I met a hu-” Suddenly Patton was wide awake, looking at Roman with wide, excited eyes. “Is it okay?!”

Roman nodded and took the scroll back, scribbling down another note.

Patton read it and scowled slightly. “He… he grew a… how did he grow legs… what?!”

Roman nodded in agreement, pointing to his throat and mimicking singing.

“He survived your singing?! But even we can’t do that!” Patton exclaimed. “Oh, I wanna meet him!”

Roman mimed in a way that hopefully said, ‘I think we can!’

“We need to go back up there… tomorrow night. You need to rest but we NEED to see him!” Patton said, pacing the room slowly. Roman noticed that his face suddenly fell and he became a bit serious, the excited twinkle in his eyes dimming.  “He can become a mer in the water but has legs out… I wonder if he’s like those illegal half-mers? If he is, you didn’t technically break the law since half-mers haven’t been seen in, what, hundred years or so?”

Roman shook his head, but then thought about the situation and shrugged. It was possible but they couldn’t be sure unless they went back up and talked to him.

“So we go back up there tonight and see if he’s there?” Patton asked, looking Roman in the eyes, the excited look returning again. Roman gave a cocky grin and gave his friend a thumbs up.

* * *

“I really wish we had a fire,” Logan said, wrapping his blanket around him even tighter.

“Well it’s illegal to burn at the moment and you wanted to come. I don’t blame you for being curious,” Virgil argued, fiddling with the zipper on his hoodie.

“Yes, I am curious, Virgil. You grew fins in my bathtub. Your legs fused together and you grew gills, a tail, and fins,” Logan retorted. “If you had almost drowned and got mild hypothermia, you’d want to know the reason why. Plus on top of that, you’d want to know the reason why your best friend keeps saying that while he was saving you, he grew a tail and met a merman who spoke clear English. I’d say I came out of more than a little curiosity.”

“Alright, alright, just teasing,” Virgil said, inching towards the water slightly. “Want some jam?”

“Of course,” Logan said, reaching into the cooler and pulling out a jar of Crofters and spoon.

“Still don’t know how you eat that plain,” Virgil said, reaching over with a cracker and scooping some onto it.

“Ish delicioush,” Logan said through a mouthful of jam.

“You don’t say,” Virgil said, wiping cracker crumbs and jam off his face. He looked out at the ocean and sighed. The sun was nearly set, making the water turn a beautiful purple-blue-orange color. The waves were rolling up onto the sand slowly and the foam was lapping up closer and closer as the tide rose.

“I’m going to stick my feet in,” Virgil said. “I kinda wanna see how far in I have to go for there to be a reaction.”

Logan finished his last bite of jam and nodded. “Great idea.”

The two stripped down to their swim trunks, Virgil keeping his tank top on, and scooted to the water’s edge, not really wanting to walk the five feet.

“Alright… these are just my feet in the salt water.” Virgil took a breath and stuck his feet into the water, shivering at the low temperature. Instantly tingles shot through his toes and up to his ankles. The slime that had formed his tail last time formed around his feet, shaping into a large colorless mass of a half-formed fin. The tingles were still there, as if they knew he was in salt water and wanted to expand outwards and form the entire tail, but they stopped just below the ankle where the fin melded into skin.

“Fascinating. It seems that if you have the saltwater in one place, that’s the place that gets transformed. It’s like a sponge that’s absorbing water for the first time,” Logan said and splashed a little on Virgil’s upper thigh. A new set of tingles appeared there and wherever the water droplets hit, slim began to envelop his skin.

“I really don’t like the look of that,” he said. “I’m just gonna get in a bit more. Slowly though, it’s really cold.”

He crept in until the water was just below his knees. By this point, the slime had fused his calves together, formed the shape of his tail completely and created the outline of where his scales would appear. He could feel a slight pain in his neck as his gills began to open up.

“Do you think I have to be all the way in for color to appear?” he asked Logan.

“We have to test to find out for sure, but I say most likely,” Logan said, not taking his eyes off what was left of his legs.

Virgil nodded, took a deep breath, and slid his entire body under the next wave. The tingles shot up his legs faster than he could blink, the slime enveloping and fusing his legs instantly, tearing through his shorts and forming every individual scale. His gills opened up and took in as much salt water as they could, extracting the oxygen so Virgil could breathe. By the time the wave had passed over him, his tail had formed and he looked like a regular merman, color and all.

“Okay… so yeah. Figured out how all that works,” he muttered, flicking his tail fin and splashing Logan in the face.

“It appears that a single drop of water will not inconvenience you but diving in will,” Logan muttered, cleaning off his glasses with one hand and pulling out yet another one of his scales with the other.

“Ow! Dammit, Lo!” he complained, rubbing the spot. Logan ignored him and blew on the scale until it was dry, groaning a little as a small amount of slime fell off it, leaving only a bit of Virgil’s skin.

“Gross,” his friend muttered but than dunked the skin into the water. Instantly, the slime reformed and he was holding a purple scale again.

“It doesn’t matter what part of you touches the water as long as it’s you,” Logan muttered. “Absolutely fascinating.”

Virgil shrugged and looked out at the water again. The sun had completely set, leaving only a dark ocean reflecting the few stars that had been revealed without sunlight. He sighed and scooted sand.

“Hey, Lo, I’ll be right back, I’m going to go check something out,” Virgil said.

“Uh huh,” Logan said, drying off the scale again and sinking it into the water. Virgil smirked and dove in. The water froze his bones for a second before his body warmed up at an impossible speed. Probably another mer thing… better tell Logan when he got back.

Breathing was such a strange experience. He did it involuntarily but it was so… forced. He felt like there was a pillow over his face but he could breathe. His gills allowed him to take oxygen from the water and let him live but still… it felt strange, like breathing after eating a piece of minty gum. But more salty.

Virgil’s tail was a miracle of nature. Powerful and lithe, it sped him through the water faster than any boat could ever hope to go. Virgil felt like a living boat, the way he could turn and twist however he wanted without losing speed or sight of where he was. But he tried to not be theatrical and focused on finding the spot where Logan had swam to the night before.

He slowed down near the cliff and surfaced, his gills flapping uselessly in the air.

“Weird,” he muttered and looked around. Definitely the place where Logan had dove. He looked around him, not seeing anything interesting on the surface of the water, so he ducked under and swam deepe, keeping close to the cliff face. He must have been few dozen feet underwater but he didn’t feel a thing on his ears or his body. He could see clearer down here than he could on land… Even more mer stuff to jot down when he had a piece of dry paper.

The sandy bottom of the ocean appeared below him and with it a large cave. He swam in and asked, “Hello?” the words coming with a small stream of bubbles. There was no response though so he swam a little farther into the cave. “Roman? You there?”

“Over here.”

He turned and saw Roman sitting near the entrance of the cave with another mer, this one with a bright blue coloring with black stripes going up and down his tail. At the sight of Virgil, he squealed and swam forward. His blue eyes gleamed behind a pair of slightly cracked glasses that he had to constantly push up his nose as he smiled at Virgil. Although Virgil was slightly creeped out by the fact that a random mer was smiling at him, he was a little comforted by the fact that he was keeping himself at a comfortable distance and watching his body carefully for any signs of uncomfort.

“You’re Virgil! Oh, I’ve heard so much about you! You’re half-human, right? Oh, the human world must be amazing and-”

“Patton, calm down,” Roman said, putting a hand on the other mer’s shoulder.

“What does he mean he knows a lot about me?” Virgil asked. “I said five words to you.”

“Well we may have done a little reading between the lines and figured out how your existence may be possible and all that,” Roman said with a shrug. “Half-mers are illegal to us, so you’re a criminal so we just-”

“You know what, I’d love to hear this story, but so would my friend on the beach,” Virgil interrupted. “Besides, I don’t like the feeling of breathing water.”

“Your friend is a human, isn’t he?” Patton asked.

“No, he’s a unicorn,” Virgil said in a monotone. “Come on. He’ll be thrilled to meet you guys.”

* * *

Deep below the sea, a figure stood floating around a single golden orb, watching as the two-and-a-half mers swam out of the cave towards the human on the beach. The mer smiled maliciously and held up a single glowing finger, tracing it around the orb. The one with the purple tail stopped for a moment, shook his head and continued towards the beach.

“Perfect…”

They swam away from the orb and began to pull ingredients off the shelf, preparing a potion. There wasn’t any doubt that he would need it. Now that the halfling had the idea, he’d be down here with one of the others soon… it was only a matter of time…


	7. Chapter 7

As the slime on Virgil’s tail melted off, Logan scooped some into a small tube but his eyes never left Roman or Patton. His jaw never closed either, partially from shock, partially because he was answering questions as quickly as quickly as Patton was asking them.

“What are legs for?”

“Manuel transportation that can vary to none to-"

“How does a car work?”

“Well, it depends on the car. All have two pedals that make it go and stop, as well as-"

“What exactly is the function of a rubber duck?”

Logan actually chuckled at this one, surprised that Patton would actually ask that out of everything he could ask about the human world.

“Patton, that's enough,” Roman said.

“No, it's fine… Conan, was it?”

“Roman, actually,” he replied formally. “I was named after the city, since my mother's mother originates from there.”

“You know English and know some about the human world,” Logan observed. “How is that?”

“We actually speak whale song, dolphin click, but English, Spanish, and French are our primary languages. You do tend to drop things in our territory quite a lot,” Patton said. “Our ancestors became curious and took up studying what we found. They spent time near the surface studying phonetics.”

“Fascinating,” Logan whispered, his lip curling slightly upward. “You seem very well-versed in your history. Just… Just fascinating…”

“Yes, it is pretty _fas-fin-ating_ , ain't it?” Patton said, making both Virgil and Roman chuckle. The smile forming on Logan’s face fell and he leaned over to Virgil, who was in the process of putting on swim trunks without losing the towel laid across his waist.

“I no longer like this one,” he whispered. Virgil smirked and threw the towel to the side once his shorts were secure.

“So… what are the main things that need to be discussed?” he asked the other three.

“Well obviously how are you even existing if half-mers are illegal,” Logan said.

“Ooh, and what the human world is like!” Roman said.

“Although I would love to tell you more, and learn more about yours, that can wait until later,” Logan said, making both Roman and Patton pout in disappointment.

“Uh… what about: what the hell are we going to do? I'm illegal, you guys talking to us is illegal, and we have no idea of what to do!” Virgil said loudly. Logan put a hand on his shoulder.

“Calm down, Virgil. We're also figuring this out.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered, relaxing until Logan let go.

“We could go to King Thomas and find out what we could do,” Patton suggested. “It really wasn’t any of our faults. It was all coincidental and what interactions occurred were misunderstandings on both parties.”

“That is…” Logan stopped and thought about it, “... actually a very good idea. Your King can't punish Virgil for any laws broken since he did not choose to be born like this and was not born under the king’s laws.”

“And I technically didn't interact with any human on purpose… before now,” Roman said, wincing at the thought of them talking now, with full knowledge of what they were doing. “We can just… leave this part out of the questions.”

“Lying… again?” Patton whined.

“Unless you want to end up in prison,” Roman said.

“Prison is on the line for you?” Logan asked.

“Yeah. Since humans would feign kindness in order to hunt us and use us, they outlawed contact with them,” Roman explained.

“But you guys won't do that, right?” Patton asked.

“I am against all forms of cruelty against any living thing,” Logan said.

“I didn't know mers were more than a myth until I became one, so I don't wanna hurt you guys,” Virgil said. “But we’re all in agreement to lie about this particular meeting?”

Logan and Roman nodded, and after a second of contemplation, so did Patton.

“Now about Virgil's… existence. We do want to find out more?” Logan asked.

“Yeah, I kinda want to know how my mom met my dad and then had me,” Virgil said. “Full mers don't grow tails on-land, and my dad doesn't seem like the type of person to do a fish. Are there like spells or something that could give you guys tails?”

“Maybe… we could ask King Thomas… If someone committed an illegal act, his father would have kept records of it,” Patton asked.

“What about that one Legend, the sea hag… what's the name… Dissolve?” Roman muttered under his breath for a second and then snapped his fingers. “Deceit! That's the name!”

“Sea Hag? Like Ursula?” Virgil asked.

“Who?”

“Never mind… this Deceit, he creates spells and potions that could change a mer into a human or vice-versa?” Logan asked.

“If he exists, then yeah,” Patton confirmed. “You think he could have given his mom a potion?”

“Exactly,” Logan said. “I say we go and ask him if he did and if so, then the mystery is solved. If not, we ask your King. Virgil, any objections?”

Virgil pursed his lips, a thought that had been with him for a bit now. They might not like it, Logan especially, but they were doing this for him and from the sound of it, they would do anything to make sure he found out more about himself and his past.

He took a deep breath. “Yeah… I just… I can't do this without someone I know. Like really know. I wouldn't be able to handle this without an emotional anchor.”

“What do you mean?” Patton asked, but it didn't matter that he didn't understand because Logan was staring at him in shock.

“Logan, I know it's a lot to ask, but without you- If this guy is for real, we could see if he could bring you with us!” Virgil argued. “Please, Lo.”

Logan looked at him and for a second, Virgil thought saw fiery hate in his eyes before it was extinguished by Logan's form of sympathy and love.

“Okay. If he's real, feel free to ask if he can do what you're asking,” Logan said, a hint of worry buried under a mountain of indifference.

Virgil didn't say anything, just smiled at him.

“Aw, that's so sweet!” Patton said. “I still don't get it.”

“He's going to go down with us if Deceit can make us a potion to turn Logan into a mer,” Roman explained.

“Still so sweet!” Patton said, but a bit of the joy had been replaced with the same worry that Logan had let slip.

“So, Virgil, you're joining me in this quest to find the sea monster? I hear that he dwells deep within what you humans refer to as the Bermuda Triangle, near the northern tip,” Roman said in a very ominous voice.

“If you're trying to spook me, it's not working,” Virgil lied, scooting into the water and waiting for his tail to form. “How do we get to the Bermuda Triangle from here?”

“Ooh, you get to learn speeding!” Patton said, his tail flapping excitedly. “Roman is the best teacher! He taught me!”

“We’ll get out of the cove before we start that lesson,” Roman said, brushing Virgil’s ripped swim trunks away from him and out of the water. Virgil nodded and looked at Logan. Virgil locked eyes with his friend, silently confirming that he was okay with this. Logan nodded nodded without hesitation before Roman dragged Virgil under the water.

* * *

 

Deceit watched as the halfling and the red mer slipped away from the human and blue mer. A smile spread across his lips and he brushed the orb. The red mer talked to the halfling, showing him the proper techniques for speeding. The halfling scowled at something the mer said but positioned his body and in half-a-second, the view of the orb was blurred with bubbles. When the finally cleared, the red mer was laughing uncontrollably as the halfling caught his breath, his eyes surprised and gills flaring. The two calmed down for a few minutes before they started speeding towards his cave. 

A thought of the future crossed his mind and he floated away from the orb, rubbing his temples.

“Don’t get too cocky now… Stay on-task…”


	8. Chapter 8

Virgil almost started vomiting the instant they slowed down. Roman swam up next to him and tried to help him breathe normally again by tapping lightly on his shoulder. His tail fin brushed the silty sand and he shivered, the feeling strange and unwelcome. All-in-all, Virgil was regretting everything.

“I thought humans liked to try and go fast?” Roman asked, unable to hide the sarcasm and amusement in his voice.

“We try to go faster and faster but-” Virgil belched a little, “but uh, I’ve never gone faster than a few hundred miles in a few hours. Going a few hundred miles in a matter of minutes is a much different experience…”

“I bet,” Roman said. “Alright… so I think we’re in the right area…”

“Oh, what gave it away?” Virgil asked, looking around them. “The empty expanse that way or the even emptier expanse that way?”

“Yeah. Plus the fact that you can almost feel the magic in the air.” Roman took a deep breath, his gills flaring out. “It's like a jellyfish sting.”

Virgil copied Roman’s breathing, but only tasted salt water. Maybe a little tangier than normal water but definitely not much different.

“Nope. Maybe it’s the half-human thing. So if you can taste it, or feel it, or whatever, you’re the one that needs to lead the way.” He bowed dramatically. “Lead the way, bloodhound.”

“What’s a bloodhound?” Roman asked, following whatever senses he was feeling.

“It’s a land animal that has the can smell blood and then track it. Humans use them to hunt,” Virgil explained. “They’re supposed to be really dangerous or something, but they’re just big dorks that are absolutely adorable.”

“What's blood?” Roman asked seriously. Virgil stared at him, not sure whether he was joking or not. Roman kept his serious face for a few seconds before he snorted. “I have blood, don’t worry. These animals sound like good animals that Patton would like.”

“Patton would like any animal on land that didn't have venom or kill anything it could touch,” Virgil reasoned. “So away from the human world… what about the mer one? You never did explain the whole thing with Logan diving into the ocean to try and get to you.”

“Oh, sorry about that,” Roman said, his face turning as red as his scales. “But… I'm a Siren. You probably know about us, don't you?”

“Yeah. Shows, stories, the works,” Virgil replied.

“Well, Sirens aren't as well-liked down here as they are up there. We're looked at by other mers as a lot of your humans are looked at by other humans. They bully us and push around because of our unfortunate history of drowning sailors- we do that only by accident now, but it doesn't change anything.” Roman pursed his lips. “The power in our voices grows strongest at the full moon, so strong that mers, who are normally immune to it, are affected. To combat this, we hide in secluded caves and sing there for a few days, where no one can get hurt. You and Logan were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And even though I’m still supposed to be in the cave right now, I needed to know more. Thankfully my magic isn’t as strong as others, so it wore off quickly, but, still, I almost hurt Logan.”

“Well, you couldn’t have done anything to prevent it, Roman. Like you said, wrong place, wrong time. And besides, now we know that someone like me exists, you’re getting the danger of a lifetime, Patton gets to learn more about humans, and Logan gets to science his way out of an obviously magical situation,” he reasoned gently. “You did nothing wrong, Roman. And if you blame yourself, I will swim back and tell Patton. He seems like the type of person who would totally kick your ass if he found out you were bad-talking yourself.”

“Oh, trust me, he is.” Roman laughed. “One time, Thomas, our king, was beating himself up about being late to a meeting because he was busy playing with some kids. Patton literally started scolding him right there in the hall for thinking bad about himself. Our KING, being scolded by PATTON, in front of ROYAL GUARDS!”

Now Virgil couldn’t hold back a laugh. The two had to stop so they could stop laughing. Virgil didn’t realize how good it felt to do that again. It had been so long since a genuine laugh had made its way through his body and for some reason… it felt even better knowing even more about himself. It felt good to laugh about something with someone who had a sense of humor that exceeded the bounds of a dead meme…

Roman chuckled and then stiffened, his gills flaring and his eyes wide.

“Wh-What’s wrong?” Virgil wheezed, trying to stop laughing as quickly as possible.

“It’s there… He’s right there.” He turned almost robotically to his left and stared directly at a large hole in the sand. Virgil took in a gulp of seawater and felt the magic. Strong, like a shot of espresso, but unwelcome, like a spoonful of sriracha directly on his tongue. Definitely more of a taste than a feeling like Roman was describing.

“So… down the rabbit hole we go?” he asked.

“Human thing. Explain later. But yeah, down the hole,” Roman agreed. With that, they dove in. It was dark, and it was cold, and yes, Virgil would admit that he was scared. He was diving deeper than any human could without any sort of suit or mechanism, and if whoever they were searching for was supposedly a legend to mers, deeper than any mer had too.

“I think there’s something ahead of us,” Roman whispered, his voice echoing around them. “The magic is getting stronger.”

“I can feel it,” Virgil said, rubbing his fingers together to help battle his nerves. “Let’s just get down there and-”

The tunnel opened up into a large cave, bigger than Virgil’s entire house. The water around them was cold, but at the same time was almost literally buzzing with the magic of whatever lived down here. He looked around, but the only light was coming from the opening they had just swum through.

“Hello?” Roman asked. “Deceit?”

“Hello.”

The cave was suddenly illuminated by the creature huddling in the corner, waiting for them. The instant Virgil could see it properly, he wanted to turn around and swim as fast as he could in the other direction. This thing was obviously a mer, with defined masculine muscles and features. Pale skin faded brown hair and eyes that shone like a pair of suns. But that was only a small portion of the mer. The other three-quarters of him were purely aquatic.

His skin faded into ugly yellow-brown scales that shimmered hypnotically. The gills on his neck and sides were flaring impressive. The fins stretching up and down his body were waving like silk and shimmering with the same light. His scales reached slightly past his naval, blending with his skin in just above his rib cage and becoming splotchy and random across his face and arms, the largest of the bunch stretching across the left side of his face to mutate his eye into a thing from a horror film; wide with no eyelid, and a slit pupil that examined Virgil with curiosity rivaled only by when Patton first saw him, but without the warmth and the comfort. With this mer staring at him, Virgil felt like he wanted to curl in on himself and hide, but the lights… they shone like the moon and stars above… he just couldn’t stop looking at them…

“You’re Virgil and Roman, I presume?” the mer said, his voice as smooth as his fins.

“Yes.” Virgil was hardly aware of how he and Roman had said this in the same tired voice and without any hesitation. He knew he should be fighting back, he had seen how Dory and Marlin had almost been eaten by this type of fish, but… this was different from the Siren’s song. Both the human and mer part of him wanted the shiny object…

“Well, you will remember this later, so I will tell you this now: yes, I know your names. I keep track of anyone who seems of interest to me. So when a siren and a human who could grow fins interacted, well, count me in. Now, you’re looking for something to transform your friend into one of us, correct?” Deceit asked.

“Yes,” Virgil said, his voice becoming less and less hypnotized by the second as his rational thinking began to kick in.

“I can do that for you, but as with everything in the world, I need payment. Now, I am a potion-maker, so any new ingredients I can get my hands on, I will take,” Deceit explained, swimming around the two of them slowly, examining them as much as he could without touching them. “Virgil, I believe you are the first of your kind. Half-mer, half-human. A very interesting subject. Now, if you want the potion to transform your friend, I require a dozen scales, a thumb of hair, and a pinky of blood.”

That snapped Virgil out of his haze. He jolted and looked at Deceit in fear.

“My bloo-”

“It’s quite a simple deal, Virgil,” Deceit said. “A few ingredients so I can make new potions in exchange for others. It’s not that difficult.”

“Well- uh…” Virgil couldn’t think of an excuse but he could think of a problem that might come with another goal he had in mind when he first came down here. “How much more would it cost to ask a question about the past? Your past customers, I mean.”

“A question is a question, and a price is a price. Can’t change either unless new information is added,” Deceit said. “Now, I will answer any question as well as give you enough potions to keep your friend underwater for up to 72 of your human hours. All of that in exchange for what I said before: a dozen scales, a thumb of hair, and a pinky of blood. To put it in your terms, an inch of your hair and enough blood to fill a container the size of your pinky.”

Virgil pursed his lips. They weren’t bad, just some blood, hair, and scale… in exchange for something that would probably cost a voice to another sea hag…

“Deal,” Virgil said. Deceit smiled, fangs curling over his thin lips. Without another word, he swept around his cave, collecting small tools and instruments.

“Sit down on a rock. I will turn on some natural light soon so your friend can stop drooling like a moron,” Deceit said, rummaging through some cabinets. Virgil did as he was told, not wanting to break a promise this important to him.

“So… what type of fish-”

“Angler. Quite useful for catching prey this far down,” Deceit said, snapping his fingers and igniting a dozen or so orbs the size of Virgil’s hand that had been floating around the cave. He glanced at one and saw a small mer, maybe five or six, fast asleep in their shell bed. Another was huddled in a corner, their eyes drooping with exhaust as the waves crashed above their head.

“When you say mers of interest-”

“I mean those that are different than the others. I have an orb on your friend here simply because of his blood. Siren blood is quite special, but I don’t require any from him; I have enough already,” Deceit said and suddenly, the lights in his tail shut off like a light switch. Roman blinked and looked up at Deceit.

“Uh… you're… Virgil, he's… YOU'RE REAL?!”

“Roman, the deal’s made. Sit down and shut up again,” Virgil said, scooting over to allow Roman a place to do so. He didn’t argue, swimming over to Virgil without taking his fearful eyes off of Deceit. The Angler Mer hummed happily, producing a pair of tweezer-like objects and holding them up to Virgil.

“This will hurt a little, I will not lie,” Deceit said, grasping one of Virgil’s thousands of scales.

“I know,” Virgil said, wincing as the first one was pulled free. Deceit examined the small purple scale for a second, his eyes glimmering with the same curiosity and excitement Logan’s eyes held when he had first seen Virgil’s scales. He hummed and put the scale in a small container made of a clear stone of sorts.

“So, Deceit-” Virgil hissed as another scale was taken- “Did you know my mother?”

“You’ll have to be more specific, Virgil. Although I don’t get many visitors, I am not good at faces.”

“Well, she probably would have asked for something to make her human… she had eyes just like mine,” Virgil said, his dad flashing into his mind as soon as he said this. He shook away his guilt about leaving his father without so much as a goodbye or an apology and kept going. “She probably would have wanted to go to the surface for a man, or out of curiosity and-”

“Ah yes, I remember her now. I believe her name was… Chrysta,” Deceit said. At his words, Virgil's heart leaped. He was about to hear the first thing about his mother -Chrysta- that wasn't that he had her eyes. He was going to hear why she had risked everything to be with his dad, hear how she met him… who she was…

“I kept an eye on her from the instant that she got caught on the human's net. She wanted to apologize for some reason,” Deceit explained, pulling out the final scale and moving away to store them. “She gave me… I believe she had promised me some of her blood once she was human, and some when she returned. Chrysta paid her debt but asked for more of the potion. This went on for almost two years before one day, and I'll admit, I grew fond of her company. However, as time passed, and as she continued to take the potions, she grew visibly grew weaker…”

He took a pair of rusted old scissors, held them to the hair nearer to the back of his head and sliced off an inch of his brown locks. “But one day, she did not return. I looked in her orb, but it had gone mostly dark. The only light that remained was focused on a small, fragile boy named Virgil.”

Virgil was speechless. Chrysta had risked everything to apologize to a man who had caught her in a net…? And proceeded to throw her life and blood away to be with him for such a long time before having him? She was a kind woman who had done everything in her power to make it right.

He didn't realize that the lump that was normally trapped in his throat when he was emotional had escaped. He couldn't see his tears but he felt the stinging in his eyes.

“She sounds like an amazing woman,” Roman commented, rubbing Virgil's arm softly.

Deceit nodded, pulling out a needle and approaching Virgil. He was too wrapped up in his emotions to even register the needle being inserted into his arm. His mother… this was the most he’d ever heard about her. A name, a bit of personality, a reason that she stayed… a reason that she put herself through pain and suffering to be with his father. How that pain and suffering had eventually been handed her She had loved him and loved his father until that pain and suffering became her demise…

“Thank you for the ingredients, Virgil,” Deceit said, snapping him out of his thoughts. He looked at Deceit, who was putting away his blood and pulling out a small pouch. “Now, inside of this pouch is three potions, each able to last 24 hours. The initial transformation will only take a few hours-"

“Why that long?” Roman asked.

“Changing one’s DNA is not an easy task. The process will take a long time, but it will be without pain. Your friend will get a five-minute warning that the potion is wearing off when his scales start to melt off. When that happens, he must wait until he is fully human again before taking the next potion. The next two will take more seconds before he is given another 24 hours.”

“Why does he have to wait until he is human again?” Roman asked.

“It is more of a safety precaution than anything, but by all means, have him take the potion early,” Deceit said, his voice somewhere between a snarl, a sneer, and sarcastic drawl.

Virgil didn't argue and took the bag from Deceit. “Thank you, Deceit… I hope those ingredients work.”

Deceit pursed his lips, glancing back into his cave. “As do I. Remember, 24 hours per potion.”

Virgil nodded, but for a second, almost didn't follow Roman out of the cave. He wanted to stay, to know everything that Deceit had learned about Chrysta. Wanted to learn about the orbs, what they could do.

But Logan was waiting, and his father needed to know that he knew.

With a flick of his tail, Virgil left the cave, the potions clutched tightly in his hands.


	9. Update

Hey there. I've been thinking about this story a lot and I have a huge plan for it in the future, so what I'm going to do is rewrite it.

New chapters, new story, new mystery.

Thanks so much for the kudos and comments, they mean so much. 

Hope you guys will enjoy once I get it published!!

**Author's Note:**

> So 'Living with the Past' is put on hiatus until my motivation for it comes back, but for now, here's something I've had inspiration for, my Tumblr (dontbugmeimantisocial and edited by pastel-and-gore) work, Dive Right In. I'll be posting this first chapter as well as the next few at once, and then gradually updating here as I update on Tumblr. It's a mermaid au that I've absolutely loved working on and I hope you guys do too!


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